特魯瓦達 被遺忘的預防HIV特效藥
Even though taking a daily pill can protect almost completely against getting H.I.V., a third of primary care doctors and nurses in the United States have never heard of it, federal health officials said this week.
美國的聯邦衛生官員在本週表示，雖然每日服用一種藥片幾乎可以完全預防H.I.V.（人類免疫缺陷病毒）感染，但在美國，有三分之一的初級保健醫生和護士從來沒有聽說過它。
Taking Truvada daily gives better than 90 percent protection to men at risk of getting H.I.V. from gay sex, and better than 70 percent protection to drug injectors at risk of getting it from sharing syringes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
美國疾病控制和預防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention，C.D.C.)稱，對於因同性性行爲而存在感染風險的男性，每日服用特魯瓦達(Truvada)可實現90%以上的保護率；對於因共用注射器而有感染風險的注射吸毒者，保護率達70%以上。
“Providers play a central role in increasing awareness and uptake of PrEP,” Dr. Eugene McCray, director of the agency’s division of H.I.V. prevention, said, using the acronym for pre-exposure prophylaxis, as the practice of taking the drug for prevention is known.
“供應商在增進人們對PrEP的瞭解和接受中發揮了核心作用，”該機構H.I.V.預防部門的主管尤金·麥克雷(Eugene McCray)博士說。由於服用藥物預防的做法日漸爲人所知，他在談話中直接使用了“暴露前預防”的英文縮寫。
Truvada is currently the only antiretroviral drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for PrEP, but its maker, Gilead Sciences, does not advertise it for that purpose. The C.D.C. calculated that about 25 percent of all healthy gay men, 20 percent of all healthy drug injectors and about 0.4 percent of all healthy heterosexual women would benefit from being on the drug; the gay men because they have an infected partner or have unprotected sex with multiple partners, the drug injectors because they share syringes and the women because they have partners who inject drugs or are bisexual. There are an estimated 45,000 new H.I.V. infections in the United States each year.
特魯瓦達是目前唯一被美國食品和藥品監督管理局(Food and Drug Administration, F.D.A.)批准用於PrEP的抗逆轉錄病毒藥物，但它的製造商吉利德科學公司(Gilead Sciences)卻未曾給它的這一用途做過廣告。按照C.D.C.的計算，這種藥物可造福於約25%的健康男同性戀者、20%的健康注射吸毒者和約0.4%的健康異性戀女性。男同性戀者的風險在於他們的伴侶有可能是感染者，以及他們可能會與多個性夥伴發生不安全的性行爲；注射吸毒者的風險在於共用注射器；而女性的風險在於她們的伴侶可能是注射吸毒者或雙性戀者。據估計，美國每年約有4.5萬例新發H.I.V.感染。
